


leave, and take

by eutrash (AreteNike)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: F/M, uhhhhhhhh s5 spoilers, vague hints of theories about quintessence and shit but this is just a really short drabble idk yall
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-28
Updated: 2018-03-28
Packaged: 2019-04-07 17:34:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14086065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AreteNike/pseuds/eutrash
Summary: She has to go. He has to stay.





	leave, and take

**Author's Note:**

> ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

It's an argument they've been having for weeks.

Krolia doesn't want to leave her son behind, understandably. They both know perfectly well that when she leaves, she'll never return--they've both always known that. And yet, she doesn't want to bring him into danger, either, into the war she won't talk about. That's no place for a child; it's how she grew up but it's not what she wants for him. She wants him to have a better life.

He doesn't want her to take their son away, either; after all, when she leaves, she'll never return. But Keith has the markings of a galra, if not the full colors of one. His baby teeth came in with fangs. His ears are just shy of pointed. He'll never pass for a full human, and his father knows full well what the government is capable of, what they could do to his son if they find him. He'd have to keep him here, hidden out in the desert alone, no friends or playmates or company other than his father. That's not the life he wants for his son.

So, they keep arguing about it. Leave, or take.

Leave, or take.

Keith is immune to it all. He's a happy baby, against all odds--against the grimness around him. He smiles and laughs whenever either of them so much as glance his way, a being of pure delight, and nothing can stop an argument quicker.

Neither of them want to extinguish that, either. But Krolia has to go.

"Maybe we could disguise him," he suggests once. Krolia sighs.

"We could, given the technology," she says. "But we don't have that."

"There's no way at all?"

"There might be," she says. "I'll look into it," she says.

She looks into it. He doesn't know what it means, but she looks into it and she must find something because she comes to him one night determined. Grim, but determined, not dejected.

"There's a way," she says.

It looks like magic, what she does. Maybe it is. He wouldn't know, but she does something, and Keith's marks disappear. His pale skin grows pinker, his ears and teeth rounder. He looks like a human, no evidence of the mother who will leave him behind. Nothing for his father to see and remember but his eyes and his laugh.

"So long as he stays on Earth, it will stay," says Krolia. "The quintessence here is enough."

"Okay," he says, and he still doesn't know.

"I have to go," she says.

"Goodbye," he says. "Safe travels."

It means more than that, but she has to go, and she's never coming back.

He doesn't know that Keith will have to go too, someday. Not yet. He'll realize it, when he finds the cave; he'll remember the stories. Why she was here. He'll see Keith look to the desert when Krolia's sensors and gauges silently fluctuate, like it calls to him. He'll realize it and he'll leave himself because he can't stand to be left behind again.

Weak, maybe. Broken-hearted for sure.

He'll never know that, in space, quintessence is in short supply. He'll never know that what Krolia did will wear away in its lack, in her presence, by chance.

He'll suspect, eventually, that their choices never mattered. But that's nothing anyone can know for sure.

**Author's Note:**

> the working title for this was "half formed child thing" which is extremely unfortunate out of context bc i only meant that i had no idea what i was doing with it w o o p s
> 
> tumblr@maternalcube


End file.
